1ºGreat story:

SURFSIDE, Fla.—At 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Albert Aguero woke to shaking walls and a thunderous noise.

Mr. Aguero, 42, was vacationing from New Jersey with his family in an 11th floor apartment in Champlain Towers South that belongs to his parents. His wife, Janette, jumped out of bed to make sure their children were all right. From his balcony, he asked firefighters outside if they should evacuate, and was told: immediately. Part of the building had just collapsed.

“When we opened the door and looked to the left, our neighbor’s apartment was half-gone,” said Mr. Aguero. “If I looked forward, the elevator shaft is missing. So then we had to run to the nearest stairwell and get out of there. I’m thinking now that the rest of the building is going to come down.”

After descending to around the third floor, they encountered an 88-year-old woman and began helping her escape. The woman seemed resigned to not making it out, he said, telling him she had lived a good life.

The first floor of the building was flooded, he said, so the group crawled up several feet of rubble. Once they reached the pool deck, he said, his instinct was to run. “When we got down to the beach, I think that’s when it all really hit me, of what had just happened,” he said.

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